Madness, Like Gravity
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: Joker admires the beauty of it all.


**Title:** Madness, Like Gravity…  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** PG for dark psychological themes.  
**Characters:** Arthur Fleck.  
**Setting:** A certain car ride near the movie's end.  
**Summary:** Joker admires the beauty of it all.  
**Disclaimer:** Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I'm just playing with him.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompt word "Match" at Fan Flashworks.

* * *

It was like waking from a long and dreary nightmare—only to find that Halloween night, Christmas morning, and the Fourth of July had suddenly decided to happen all at once.

Flaming-car bonfires. Icy sparkles of shattered glass. Fireworks of road flares and smoke bombs. And everywhere, up and down the street, crowds of running, shouting _people_. Masked figures cavorting amidst the wreckage, brazenly hauling their looted goods like trick-or-treaters or holiday shoppers; humans who had abandoned all pretenses, simply reveling in being the animals they were.

With his painted nose pressed to the window of the patrol car, the avenging clown named Joker took in the spectacle with a childlike glee. Gotham felt _right_ like this, its grim canyons of filth transformed into a phantasmagoria of light and color… and _he_ felt right for the first time in his life, liberated from the too-tight skin once known as Arthur Fleck. Not a single lie remained to tie his spirit down. That would have been enough for him all on its own, but the idea that he had any role in kicking off this party was sheer icing on the cake.

On the other hand, the fact that they gave him _all_ the credit was the best joke of all.

At least at the start, as Arthur, he had been only the match that first lit the fuse; an incendiary splinter with no agency of his own, simply used and discarded by others. That match was more than figuratively _struck_ by the hand of Gotham itself: personified by Penny Fleck who imprisoned him in an illusion of a life, Thomas Wayne who sneered down from his ivory tower, bully-boys both rich and poor who took pleasure in inflicting pain, even that idiot Randall who schemed behind a smile.

(Of all his kills, in hindsight, Randall was the only one Joker might have contemplated with even the most fleeting moment of remorse. If his fellow clown hadn't put a gun in his hands, he might have remained a pathetic nonentity for the rest of his days—and _that_ was a terrifying thought to him. Maybe he should have been a bit more grateful for that contribution to his journey of self-discovery… _Nah_. The guy was an asshole either way, and now he wouldn't be around to torment Gary, which was just as well. And besides, Joker actually _had_ thanked him before he shanked him.)

No, it really wasn't Arthur who had started this ball rolling. The empty husk that he was could never have harbored such a power—until his yearning hollowness was filled, not by love or kindness, but by every bit of cruelty and hate the city had vomited out. It was only as Joker, a living embodiment of Gotham's collective madness, that he finally realized the ability to shape events of his own volition: a newfound talent for weaponizing chaos.

And it was all so _easy_. Just one little push to tip over what was already on edge. Tear off one guy's mask, and a subway car erupts into a brawl; fire a few well-placed bullets, and an entire city burns.

To think of all the years he'd wasted trying to entertain others, when he could merely have sat back and entertained _himself_ with the absurd delusion of civilization that called itself _society_.

Nor was he alone now in seeing the world for the grand morbid joke that it was.

Outside the window, rioters flailed and cheered in the light of burning trash piles. Some were dancing, just as Joker himself felt in his heart like doing, while muffled whoops and cackles dimly penetrated the glass.

As the most beautiful irony of his life dawned upon him, a laugh fluttered up within his own chest, like a butterfly taking wing on the winds of Gotham's lunacy. Nothing at all like Arthur's desperate, wrenching hacks, it was instead an astonishingly soft and gentle sound of sincere pleasure.

Penny was right about one thing after all. He really had been meant to bring some joy and laughter into the world.

It just didn't happen in a way either of them could ever have expected.

* * *

**End Notes:** I winced slightly at borrowing the title from a _Dark Knight_ Joker quote, but it's for a good reason. To my way of thinking, the realization of how to weaponize chaos—how to throw people and situations into disarray with "just one little push"—would be equally key to this Joker's further evolution as an archfiend. Our former mama's-boy party clown has obviously _not_ started out as a mastermind, but essentially (bad-)lucked into a position of power. Going forward, I feel he would need to buy time to grow into the role, relying on unpredictability, opportunism, and resourcefulness to mask his initial lack of conventional criminal skills.  
…Also, my brain has apparently decided that the butterfly—representing transformation, liberation, and colorfulness—is an appropriate bit of symbolism for Joker. Expect the theme to recur in at least one more fic, which I had already outlined before the imagery surfaced here as well.

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


End file.
